Therapy
Eric let out with a low whistle as Steven slid his sweater back down, safely covering the scars that had been left on his back.
Eric stepped away as Steven turned to face him and then walked around his desk and took a seat. He motioned for Steven to sit too and he did.
“Well seeing is believing I guess,” Eric said. “You know, I wasn’t exactly kidding when I said a priest might be better suited for this than a therapist.”
“You’re not backing out on me now are you?” Steven asked.
“No, not exactly,” Eric said. “I just wish I knew what I was dealing with here. I’m as big of a believer in things otherworldly as the next guy. But there’s a part of me that…”
“That’s still looking for a logical explanation right,” Steven said. “Because we’re humans and we’re rational beings and we all need to make sense of things we cannot explain.”
“Well, something like that,” Eric said. “There’s more to it really. I’m trying to see the big picture. Why this, why now? What was it exactly that set this whole ball in motion? That’s what I’d like to figure out.”
“I think I see what you mean,” Steven said, with a touch of uncertainty in his voice. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Eric said. “You know that feeling you get when you leave the house, get five miles down the road and then realize you might have left the iron plugged in? That’s what this is like, It’s a nagging feeling. I just feel like we’re missing something here, something so obvious that it could literally almost reach out and slap us silly if we looked hard enough. Can you do something for me?”
“It depends,” Steven said. “I like you and all, but I really don’t think of you like that.”
Again, they laughed and then after a brief pause, Eric sighed.
“I just want you to go through everything again for me,” Eric said. “Starting with when you got back here from Louisiana. Try to think of any details you might have left out or glossed over the day we met at the pub.”
It seemed that so much had happened, when he actually sat back and thought about it. But Steven searched his mind and began rattling off everything he could remember.
He was almost through, though, when he realized he hadn’t mentioned the dream, or was it a flashback, about his parents.
Eric must have seen a spark of recognition in Steven’s eyes because he suddenly perked up and asked, “Yes, what is it Steven? What do you remember?”
“Well, a couple things actually,” Steven said. “First, with this most recent experience. As you know, we’d been drinking that day. A neighbor stopped by after I got home. We drank more and I did some cocaine. Trust me, it’s not a habit.
For whatever, reasons, Steven almost felt like a child in a confession booth and Eric’s assessment returned to him. Maybe a priest was what he needed.
Eric just sat there impassively.
Almost disappointed, Steven asked, “You’re not going to tell me how bad that is?’
“Well, I never advocate drug use in my clients, if that’s what you mean,” Eric said. “But by the same token, you’re a big boy. And, most importantly, coke or no coke, you couldn’t have inflicted those scars on yourself. Doesn’t matter how fucked up you were.”
“Thanks,” Steven muttered with a slight grin.
“I get paid to tell you these things,” Eric said, chuckling. “What else do you remember? Or what significance do you place with the cocaine?”
“Not major significance,” Steven said. “But a thought that had crossed my mind in terms of Sanders, the past life and the nightmares is that they seem to come more, I guess, after I’ve partied. It’s like I become more susceptible to it all after I’ve either had a few drinks, smoked a little weed or, now, after I’ve snorted a few lines.”
“Interesting,” Eric said. “I actually hadn’t considered that. I’ll have to digest that one for a while, if, for no other reason, because defenses and inhibitions are lowered. What else do you remember?”
At this point, Steven carefully laid out the dream he’d had about his parents. He described the argument they had and how his mother grabbed the steering wheel. He also described the aftermath of the crash and how the man he’d come to now know as Sanders had briefly been there and how he bayoneted his mother’s corpse after it had attacked.
“What do you think that means?” Eric asked him.
“Fuck if I know,” Steven admitted. “I was hoping you had a few ideas.”
“Well, do you think that’s what happened?” Steven asked. “Do you think that’s how they died?”
“You mean do you think I actually went back ad witnessed their deaths?” Steven asked.
“Yes,” Eric said.
“I haven’t really considered it in a literal sense,” Steven said. “Maybe. I guess so. Yes. But how can that be?”
“I think that’s an irrelevant question at this point,” Eric said. “There are a lot of things about your whole case, Steven, that just should not be. I think it’s time we start to maybe begin accepting some of these things at face value, no matter how crazy or fucked up they seem.”
“This isn’t really helping,” Steven said. “Aren’t therapists supposed to make their patients feel normal, not encourage lunacy?”
“Some perhaps,” Eric said. “But then again we both know I’m not exactly the most orthodox practicioner around. It’s what makes me so effective though. In other words, I’m not going to lie to you or tell you what you want to hear so we both sleep better at night.”
“Well, yes,” Steven finally said with a sigh. ” I think I witnessed their deaths. I’m positive that’s how it played out. But that scenario also brings out more questions.”
“Like,” Eric said.
“Well, for starters, was my mother having an affair?” Steven asked.
“I don’t see how that’s really relevant either,” Eric said.
“Through all of this it’s becoming obvious that my mother wasn’t who I thought she was,” Steven said.
“I tend to doubt that,” Eric said. “I think you always, on some level, knew your mom was..unstable.”
“But what doctor?’ Steven asked. “If she was having an affair, what doctor was she fucking? I never remember her going to a doctor.”
“Well,” Eric said with a pause. “She had to have gotten all the drugs they found in her system during the autopsy from some place, don’t you imagine.”
Just then Steven stood up and walked to the table near the entrance to Eric’s office. He picked up a manila folder, walked back to the chair and sat down.
“Here,” he said, as he opened the folder. “I wanted to show you these.”
Steven removed the picture and the letter from Paul.
Eric glanced first at the photo and then looked back p at Steven.
“What?’ Steven asked. “If you’re looking for any of them that favor me, good luck. He’s not there.”
“No,” Eric muttered. “I can’t say any of them are exactly screaming out at me. Which one is Paul? And Sanders?”
Steven took the picture in his hands and pointed the two of them out.
“Yeah,” Eric said. “Sanders is definitely a scary-looking guy. Have you thought about getting this thing blown up. It’s possible you could get a read on their tags.”
“Dog tags?’ Steven asked.
“No, look here just above the breast pocket,” Eric said. “They look like name labels. You said Paul called you, Tee, right?’
“Yeah,” Steven said. “But whose to say those are actually their names on the labels. When I was out, I heard Sanders say their mission was un-fucking-sanctioned, end quote. If we were on some kind of secret mission behind enemy lines, do you think we’d have name labels just screaming out? If anything else, they might be the wrong names just to confuse anyone who stumbled upon our good looking corpses.”
“Good point,” Eric replied. “But still, I’d be interested to see what we could find if we blew this up.”
Eric idly spun the photo around in his fingers until his eye caught something on the back of the photo.
“Look at this right here,” he said, excited, pointing to the back of the photo. “What does this look like to you?”
Steven hadn’t noticed it. But as he glanced again at the spot on the back of the photo where Eric’s finger was resting he saw it. It was a perfect square. The paper on the inside of the square, and you had to look very closely to see it, was just a tad bit whiter than the paper on the outside edges of the square.
Eric rubbed his finger over the small square and nodded.
“What does this look like to you?” he asked Steven.
“Tape,” Steven said.
“Exactly,” Eric said. “Something was taped here. And I’d bet dollars to dimes it was a caption with everyone’s names on it.”
Steven frantically opened the manila folder and looked inside, hoping to find the piece of paper stuck to the inside. But there was nothing.
“The letter,” Steven said. “It’s something else that’s been bugging me. There are a few places where Paul uses the word they. No just Sanders, or him, but they.”
“Steven, I have to ask you this, what exactly do you think happened out there?” Eric asked.
“Well, I already told you. I think Sanders murdered me,” Steven said. “Look, I think something bad, very bad happened out there. But, I’m starting to think Sanders wasn’t acting alone. And I have one other reason for thinking this too.”
“Go on,” Eric said, as he removed his glasses, rubbed them on his shirt and placed them back on his face.
“Back in Louisiana, on the day of the funeral when we all went out to eat lunch,” Steven said. “Someone ordered me that Jack Daniels. Granted, there’s been a lot of weird shit with all this Sanders stuff going on. And I’m not trying to discount it. But, I think there are real flesh and blood people involved in this thing too; people who are alive; people with answers.”
“What, like some kind of conspiracy?” Eric asked.
“Maybe so,” Steven said. “I don’t know.
“I think it’s time Steven.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to go back,” Eric said, barely above a whisper. “Are you ready?”
“If I don’t do it now I never will,” Steven said.
————- ——————– ———————–
Steven stood over the sofa near the far east wall of Eric’s office.
“What do I do?” Steven asked him.
“You’ll be fine,” Eric said. “I haven’t lost a patient yet.”
“That’s re-assuring,” Steven said as he sprawled out on the sofa. “This thing doesn’t come with restraints or something?”
“Nope, it’s a standard issue sectional,” Eric said. “Do you think you’ll need them? I honestly hadn’t considered it.”
“I don’t know,” Steven said. “I wandered out into the snow the last time.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re a flight risk,” Eric said. “But if you sock me in the jaw or something I’ll just bill extra. I’m going to see you through this. I just need you to have faith. Have faith in me and in yourself. Can you do that?”
“I think so,” Steven said.
Eric walked over to a video camera set up on an expensive-looking tripod and adjusted a switch on the side of the camera.
He returned to Steven’s side and said, “Now Steven, I want you to take a few deep breaths for me.
Steven came to suddenly, gasping for breath.
“Hello, hello,” Eric said. “Congratulations, you’ve entered the land of the living once again. Looked like it was kind of touch and go there for a minute. I had to bring you up quickly. Things got a little hairy there.”
Eric’s voice sounded echoey and far away, at fist, in Steven’s ears. But as he continued to speak, his voice slowly came slowly into focus.
Steven sat up quickly, swinging his legs off the sofa, sitting upright, still gasping as he clutched at his chest.
“My chest,” Steven gasped. “My chest. I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“Just try to breathe Steven,” Eric said.
Steven’s head hurt and he noticed that his brow and the back of his sweater was drenched with prespiration.
Eric rose to his feet walked out of view and then returned, holding a glass of water.
“Here,” he said. “Drink.”
Eric seemed like a blur, but as his movements and his voice registered, Steven took the glass in his shaky hands and gulped the water. Eric thought Steven resembled a small child, drinking from a big persons glass for the very first time.
“Easy, easy,” Eric said. “Take it slow. Try to breathe too. Not too much at first.”
Steven’s mind clicked back. It clicked back to the tent, where he was wounded, the men, Paul gently urging him to drink.
The lighting in Eric’s office seemed off, and for a moment, Eric’s face was transposed with Paul’s face. The illusion startled him and he inched away from Eric.
“It’s okay man,” Eric said. “It’s okay, you are okay. You’re back with me now.”
I must still be under, Steven thought to himself. This is too weird.
His heart was pounding in his chest. He could hear it pulsating, pounding against the thin membrane of his inner ear. Something inside his chest wrenched again, in his stomach and abdomen. Again he grabbed his chest and tried to scream through gritted teeth, “My heart, my fucking heart! I’m dying!”
He gently dabbed his hand at his abdomen and felt something wet and hot. A heavy odor filled the air, a stench really. It reeked of shit and something else that seemed vaguely chemical; sulfurous perhaps.
He pulled his hand away and his fingers still felt wet and when he glanced at the. They were glistening bright with blood.
Steven shrieked. For a moment he thought his bowels had emptied and he looked at his hand again, only to find it clean as a new-born baby’s.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he asked “What’s happening to me?”
“You’re having a low grade panic attack, I think,” Eric said. “I want you to try to breathe.”
“I was just fucking bleeding,” Steven screamed. “What the fuck have you done to me?”
“I haven’t done anything Steven, I need you to try to get hold of yourself,” Eric said.
But he couldn’t.
With each passing second, his heart seemed to beat faster and faster, He was assaulted by pungent odors and strange sounds. There was laughter, loud and echoing in his head. It was the sound of children laughing at him as they shit into the pit and tossed rocks at him.
The sound was replaced by the sound of chopper blades strumming through the air. There was smoke and craters blown into the earth. Men lay scattered on the ground, some of them dead, others dying. Paul, then Eric, then Paul, then Eric, then Paul was lying o the ground trying to say something to him. Blood dribbled from Paul’s mouth as he tried to murmur something.
A warning. It was a warning but he couldn’t get a read on it yet. Paul’s stare fell past him, behind him.
Just as it did, he heard the snap, the familiar sound of a twig breaking.
He was moving in slow motion, like his legs were being weighed down with sand bags. He saw a blur first. It was silent and the thought that crossed his mind was, the sound of a snapping branch is the last thing I’ll ever hear before I die.
Not God, not my mother, not a whore in Phang Dac screaming her as off as fuck her hard, but a fucking snapping twig. That’s the last thing I’m going to fucking hear.
The blur was a solid shape now as it moved toward him, catching him totally of guard.
It was Sanders. Sanders was charging him with his M-16 levelled, bayonet protruding.
The impact was like a freight train and to his surprise it didn’t really hurt as bad as he thought it would in that last second before it slid into his abdomen.
He smelled sulfur and felt a hot and strong stream of blood in the back of his throat. He coughed it up and spat it out in a long steady stream.
He didn’t fall and Sanders didn’t jerk the bayonet out immediately; for an instant, they both stood there, facing each other, locked in eternity in a moment of frenzied horror that neither of them would ever be able to erase.
“You and your fucking plans,” spat Sanders, as he trembled. Tears burned hot trails through the dirt corroding his face. “An orders a fucking order man. But no, that wasn’t good enough for you. You had to go off doing things your own way. We had fucking orders.”
“They were wrong,” Steven found himself murmuring through clenched teeth and his lips, which had assumed a life of their own, now flapping uncontrollably like spasming muscles. He was cold. Shivering. “They were fucking wrong.”
“You stupid fucking nigger,” Sanders said. “You’re the one whose fucking wrong. Without orders, without chain of command, we don’t have shit. You broke the fucking chain. You did that, not me.”
“Hey Sanders,” he muttered, as his legs began to wobble beneath him.
“What?” Sanders screamed.
“Ain’t no Viet Cong ever called me nigger,” he screamed savagely and then with the last energy he could muster he spit a large ball of bloody mucous and saliva that hit Sanders square in the face.
Sanders didn’t react at first. He just continued to stare at him with his deep-set eyes.
Then he smiled, rubbed the bloody mucous from his face and then sucked it greedily from his own fingers. He spit it back at Tyler and then with a sudden lurch, jerked the bayonet out of him and began to plunge it over and over into his body as it crumpled to the jungle floor with a solid but ceremonious less thud.
But it didn’t matter any more because he was beyond all pain.
He was on his back, looking up at the sun as it filtered through the humidity and the jungle canopy above.
Then there were more voices. He strained to look. Two more men joined Sanders.
“What the fuck have you done?” one of them shouted at Sanders.
“I did what had to be done,” Sanders said. “I did what we should have done in the first fucking place. You guys ready now.”
Low mumbles as they stepped away from each other and raised their rifles.
“Just in the fucking leg now you here me?” one of them said. “This ain’t no time to suddenly become a good shot.”
Sanders set his M-16 down and leaned over to pick up an AK-47 laying nearby. He raised it and fired and the man’s leg jerked out from underneath him and he screamed in agony.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he screamed.
“So whose next, me or you,” the remaining man asked Sanders.
“Fuck might as well be me,” Sanders said. “I can’t take the fucking suspense.”
Sanders walked over and handed the AK-47 to the standing soldier.
“Where do you want it Sanders, the shoulder or the gut?’ the man asked him.
“Fuck, what’s wrong with the other leg,” Sanders asked.
“We can’t all have fucking leg wounds Sanders,” the man said.
“Well I hear gut shots fucking hurt,” Sanders said with a laugh.
“Which shoulder?’ he asked as he raised the rifle.
“Not the left one, that’s the good one…”
Sanders was abruptly interupted as the bullet let loose, hitting him square in the throat.
Sanders fell, choking, and gurgling, his hands clutching his throat as the man walked over to him and stood over him.
“You sick son of a bitch,” the man said. “RIP mother fucker.”
He was still on the ground, shivering cold as his life eased out of him. But he saw this. He saw it all. He’d seen it all. Sanders killed him and Sanders was now killed.
A few meters off to the left lay Paul, who was still looking at him apologetically trying to talk but unable to.
And there was Eric, hovering above him, telling him to calm down. Yelling at him to calm down.
Steven tried to lunge at him, but his legs gave out underneath him and as he fell to the floor the choppers roared in his head until he curled into a ball and held his hands over his ears shouting, yelling bloody fucking murder, “I’m hit, I’m hit. I’m fucking dying.”
And then there were hands on him again.
“Steven come on, Steven come on, breathe Steven, breathe,” Eric screamed.
Steven got hold of Eric’s shirt and tried to raise his arm until…
The blow, a quick jab actually, stunned him as his head jerked back quickly. It wasn’t hard enough to do damage, but it was enough to snap him from the grasp of whatever had him.
Steven pressed his face into his open palms and rubbed deeply.
“What the fuck just happened?” he asked.
Eric was on his feet, standing several feet away, braced in a defensive position.
“I don’t know, you tell me,” Eric said.
“I died,” Steven said. “I just fucking died.”
Eric, visibly shaken was shaking his head and muttering.
“It’s wrong, it’s all wrong,” he said.
“What is?” Steven asked.
“I pulled you out from being under,” Eric said. “You’ll see it on the tape. You knew it. You knew you were about to die and you lost it. You’re blood pressure spiked through the roof, I had no choice but to pull you out. I pulled you out. You were conscious Steven. You weren’t under any more. This..”
Eric stammered.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” he muttered. “How the fuck did you still live it anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Steven said, winded, but very much alive. “But I was right.”
“Right,” Eric said, staring at him like he had nine heads. “Right about what?”
“It wasn’t just Sanders,” Steven said. “He didn’t act alone. He had accomplices.”
Steven paced while Eric fussed over the video camera, as he tried to hook it to a small television sitting on a rolling cart. Eric fought with the cable, cursing slightly as he did.
“Plug and play my ass,” Eric said. “You have to be a god damned rocket scientist just to set your watch these days. Here this may be it.”
Eric hit play, but was greeted by only a blank, blue screen.
“So are you going to at least tell me who I was. Please tell me we at least got that much. Or are you going to keep me in suspense?” Steven asked.
“Oh no, I got that much,” Eric said. “It’s all I could get out of you for a good fifteen minutes, name, rank and serial number. Just like in the old war movies.”
Just then a thought crossed Steven’s mind.
“Where is the picture?” he asked. “The one I brought in?”
“It should be over there on my desk,” Eric replied.
Steven crossed the office and picked the picture up. Amongst the sea of faces, of the baby-faced killers, only one was black.
You stupid fucking nigger, Sanders had screamed at him.
No Viet Kong ever called me nigger, he’d screamed back at Sanders.
And there, in the dusky photograph, which he held in his shaky fingers, was him.
He was the only black man in the squadron.
There was still no name attached, but as Steven looked at the man in the picture, it all made sense for him. It was almost as if he’d known all along. How many times had he stared at the picture? How many hours had he poured over it, hoping for that gleam of recognition? Why had he overlooked the black? Was it human nature just to assume he’d been white because he was white in his present life.
“There I am,” Steven said. “This is me, or was me.”
Eric hit play again and, this time, there they were- Eric sitting in a chair and Steven sprawled out on the sofa. The little clock was ticking away in the left corner of the screen.
“How long was I under anyway?” Steven asked.
“Close to an hour, give or take a few minutes,” Eric said.
Eric rolled the cart holding the television closer to the sofa and then they both sat down.
“It’s showtime Steven,” Eric said. “Or maybe I should say Tyler.”
The name actually spoken ran up Steven’s spine like a jolt of electricity.
“Tyler huh?” Steven asked.
“Just watch.”
It was uncanny to watch. Steven, the Steven on the television screen began to breathe as he started the relaxation exercises. Once they were complete Eric led him backwards from a count to twenty to one. Steven looked to be effectively asleep by the time they had counted down to twelve.
“Can you still hear me?” Eric asked the Steven who looked asleep.
Surprisingly, the asleep-looking Steven replied.
“Yes,” he responded. “I can here you.”
“Can you tell me where you are?” Eric asked.
“Far away,” Steven replied, his voice seeming to break.
“Can you tell me your name,” Eric said.
“It’s Steven,” he said.
“Hi Steven, my name is Eric and I’m here to help you today,” Eric said. “I need you to listen carefully today to what I ask you to do, okay? Steven, I need you to focus now.”
Just as quickly as he’d started, he stopped.
“Okay Steven, I need you to go back in time, to go back in your memories, I need you to reach back, like a big, giant stretch,” Eric said. “Imagine there’s a tape player in your head. You have the power to rewind it as far back as possible. Can you do that for me?”
Steven nodded and then asked, in the high-pitched voice of a child, “What’s a tape player daddy?”
The totality of the change in pitch and tone of Steven’s voice was eerie to behold and practically sent shivers up both Steven and Eric’s spines.
“And why did mommy yell at me today? It makes me scared when she yells.”
Childhood hurt. The pain, the expression of crushed innocence being turned to cold fear was crystallized for a moment.
And then suddenly a deeper voice slipped out of Steven’s lips, his father’s voice, but it was singing.
I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.
Steven, on the sofa, watched uncomfortably until, finally, hot tears began to stream down his face.
“I don’t think I can watch this,” he choked between sobs.
But Eric just sat impassively and said, “You have to. We don’t stay here very much longer.”
———— ————— ——————–
Eric was right. Within a matter of seconds, Steven’s posture changed dramatically. At first he lulled back into a relaxed state. And then, strangely enough, Steven on the television screen began to curl himself into a tight ball.
Eric froze the frame for a brief instant, pausing he action.
“What?” Steven asked. “What am I doing there?”
“Three guesses,” Eric said.
“I’m curling myself into a ball,” Steven ventured a guess.
“Also known as,” Eric said, pausing.
“Fetal position,’ Steven said.
“Bingo,” said Eric. “Behold the wonders of modern psychotherapy. You’re back in the womb right there.”
“So if we’re going back in a straight line my death should be next, right? Steven asked, and then added, “Well, Tyler’s death.”
“Just watch the tape,” Eric said, raising his hand with the remote in it, and pressing the pause button off.
Eric, on the television, continued.
“Steven can you still hear me?” Eric asked.
Steven responded, but the only sound that could be heard was a gurgle of sorts.
“I need you to keep going back Steven,” Eric said. “I know you can’t talk right now because your language skills haven’t developed yet. But can you blink for me.’
Suddenly, Steven’s eyes popped open and he said, “I don’t want to go back there,” in his normal, every-day, adult voice. “It’s scary there. This is where the bad part is.”
“I still need you to go back though,” Eric said. “I need you to relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“But this is where I die,” Steven said.
“You don’t have to see that part now,” Eric said. “This is just like a movie or a tape player remember, you can just rewind this part, or just close your eyes. You don’t even have to look right now, but I need you to go back. Can you do that for me?’
Steven, on the television, shrugged and tried to relax. He squinched his eyes shut tightly, his fingers digging hard into the sofa squeezing until his fingers turned white. His body locked up completely and he shuddered. He squirmed and then finally relaxed.
“Good,” Eric said. “Very good. Can you keep going back for me?”
Steven’s body became so calm, it looked as if he’d fallen into a deep sleep.
Finally, after a few seconds Eric asked, “Can you hear me?”
Steven’s eyes opened again with startling speed and his body bolted upright into sitting position.
His facial expressions, his body movements were so apparently altered it looked like a totally different person. It was like that old science fiction movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. On the surface, the clothes, the face and hair all looked like Steven. But at the core, something was very different.
On the television, Steven’s head jerked around alertly.
“Where am I?” Steven asked, in a new voice now.”
“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” Eric said. “I just need you to lay back.”
Eric placed a calm hand on Steven’s shoulder, to try to ease him back onto the sofa.
However, Steven’s hand quickly shot out and through a quick series of twists, he suddenly had Eric’s wrist bent at an awkward angle behind his back.
Eric yowled in pain and Steven said, “I’m asking the fucking questions here. Where am I?”
“I’m a doctor,” Eric said, as he crumbled to his knees. “Please let go, you’re going to break my wrist. I’m not going to hurt you. Please let go and just lay back.”
After a pause, Steven relinquished his hold on Eric’s wrist. Eric pulled it to him, rubbing it and he sat back in his seat.
“Where am I?” Steven asked again.
“Rhode Island for Christ’s sake,” Eric said. “You’re in a small town just west of Providence, Rhode Island.”
“Quit lying,” Steven said.
“Can you tell me who you are?” Eric asked him.
But Steven fell silent as he relaxed again on the sofa.
“Can you hear me?” Eric asked him.
Steven’s eyes were open, but he didn’t respond to Eric’s questions.
“Can you hear me?” Eric asked again, not wanting to push too hard, lest Steven decide it necessary to attack him again. Admittedly, that was a move he didn’t anticipate, even after Steven had suggested using restraints of some kind before placing him under.
“Who are you?’ Eric asked again. “I’m a doctor and I need this information for your charts.”
“Jackson, Tyler, private first class, 886803926,” Steven said.
No shit, name, rank and serial number, mused Steven on the sofa as he watched with alarm at what was being played out in front of him.
Eric, ever-so patient, tried again.
“Jackson, Tyler, private first class, 886803926,” Tyler said.
It might have been Steven’s body lying there , but any lingering vestiges of Steven were gone now.
“Almost as if picking up on this unseen cue Eric replied, “Tyler, you are not a prisoner.”
“Yeah and you ain’t no god damned doctor either,” Tyler shot back.
“But I am,” Eric said, pulling a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff, of all things, from his jacket pocket.
Tyler still eyed him cautiously.
“How the hell did I get all the way to Rhode Island without waking up once?” Tyler asked.
“You were sedated,” Eric said. “Very heavily.”
“Must have been some good shit, huh doc,” Tyler said, finally a big smile spreading across his face.
“Yeah, it was good shit all right,” Eric agreed. “Where are you from Tyler?”
“Me, South Carolina. Little town called Madisonville,” Tyler replied.
“I’m going to put this on you,” Eric said. “I just want to get your blood pressure.”
“Was I wounded or something?” Tyler asked.
“Something like that,” Eric replied. “I just need you to roll up your sleeve for me.”
Tyler did and muttered, “That really must have been damned good shit.”
“I would imagine so,” Eric said. “Why do you ask?”
“Just because,” Tyler began, a look of bewilderment in his eyes. “Well, the last time I checked I was a black man.”
Tyler’s gaze had fallen to his arm, where his rolled up sleeve exposed his skin.
Eric, obviously unprepared for this observation, sat upright.
“Doc, what the hell is going on here?” Tyler asked. “I’m cold.”
“Just try to relax,” Eric said, as he wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Tyler’s arm. He searched with the stethoscope for a pulse, but there was none. He pumped the ball on the blood pressure cuff but did not get a reading. And he could find no heartbeat with the stethoscope.
Eric tried not to panic.
“Something ain’t right,” Tyler said.
If ever there had been an understatement, that one had to take the grand prize.
“Look Tyler, I need you to relax,” Eric said. “Everything is going to be okay. I just need you to breathe.”
Of course, things couldn’t be more fucked up.
At that point in time, Eric’s mind raced with a million questions. Chief among them, how long can Steven live with the vitals of a dead man? Or was he already dead? What had he told Steven just before he went under?
Relax, I haven’t lost a patient yet.
Jesus.
He wasn’t prepared for this.
But Tyler, inside Steven’s body, seemed to be responding well. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
How can he be breathing with no heartbeat, no blood pressure and no fucking pulse, Eric wondered as he tried to figure out what he should do.
He’d packed the blood pressure cuff in case Steven’s experiences, while under, got to be too much. He figured he could always bring Steven up quickly if his blood pressure spiked. But never, not in a million fucking years, had he anticipated that all functions would cease.
It dawned on him, at that moment, that this was unprecedented. That he was, in fact, witnessing a miracle of medical science. The dead was actually alive, but still, statistically speaking, dead. Fuck medical miracles, this had to be a miracle of god.
“I swear to everything that is holy, I will live a better life, I’ll be a better person if you just help me bring Steven back in one piece whole God,” Eric muttered lowly. “I haven’t asked much of you in my life. But please, help me. Guide me to do the right things for this man.”
But there was only silence, except for the low sound of Tyler’s breath.
“Sleep,” Eric said. “Rest. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah doc,” Tyler said, but his voice was low, almost a whisper.
“Good,” Eric said. “Can you tell me what you see?”
“The squad,” Tyler said. “I’m with Paul. Stuckey and Roberts too. We got point. Sanders has flank. We’re closing in. This is fucked up though.”
“What’s fucked up Tyler?” Eric asked.
“This whole fucking mission,” Tyler said. “From the get-go it’s been fucked up.”
“What’s fucked up about it?” Eric asked.
“There’s civilians down there,” Tyler said.
“Women and children?” Eric asked.
“Americans,” Tyler replied. “I don’t give a shit bout no gook bitches or their babies. They just grow up to be big VC’s. But there’s Americans down there. It’s a peace summit. It’s a fucking peace summit and they want us to blow it up. That’s our orders.”
Tyler was breathing heavily now, his chest heaving up and down. Tyler reached up into the air in front of him, grabbing something. He brought it, this invisible something to his mouth and spoke.
“I’ve got a visual,” he whispered into the invisible radio. “I got a visual on targets A, B and D, but I’m missing C,E and F. The big boss ain’t there. Repeat, the big boss a
Static erupted.
“We’re moving into position now blue leader,” came a familiar voice over the radio.
Sanders.
“Stand down,” Tyler ordered. “Bring your men back down and go around to the south ridge. Big boss isn’t there.”
“What the fuck are you smoking blue leader?” Sanders voice hissed over the mic. “Big boss is right there in front. He’s the one with all the stripes on his chest. The fucking general you fucking dipshit.”
“Negative,” Tyler said. “Movement in the treeline. Stand down. Stand down.”
“There ain’t shit in the treeline,” spat Sanders. “Missing target, movement in the treeline. What kind of shit are you trying to pull? We have our fucking orders man. So help me fucking God, carry them out or I will kill you myself when I see you.”
The situation was getting out of control.
Tyler nodded to Paul, who, in turn, lobbed a grenade hard to the west.
The explosion rocked the earth and smiling, Tyler keyed the radio again.
“Stand down,” he screamed. “Abort, abort.’
Paul handed him a pair of binoculars. Down below, Tyler could see the brass, both VC and American scrambling for cover. Regular troops fanned out, scanning the perimter of their makeshift camp and began firing blindly into the jungle.
Someone, probably Sanders, began to return fire. And big boss was hit. It was a chest shot though, not a head shot. He went down like a heavy sack falling to the ground with a silent thud.
“Come on man,” Paul yelled.
Tyler dropped the binoculars and they all took off at a full run.
Some twenty minutes ater they all filed back into camp sweaty and disheveled.
Tyler took a quick head count.
“Who are we missing?” asked Seavers.
“We’re missing five,” Tyler said. “Sanders, Stuckey, Roberts, Janson and Orlowski.”
“Well, there you go,” said Phelps. “You want to know whose been fucking us. I’d look there.”
There was something in the way Phelps said this, that caught Tyler’s attention, but he didn’t pay attention to it because Paul interrupted.
“Nah man, Orlowski couldn’t hurt a fly,” Paul said. “I think he’s only killed five people since we’ve been in country and those were practically an accident. Roberts and Stuckey are okay too. Janson though. He’s another one I don’t trust as far as I could throw man.”
Slowly, the men began to fall out and disperse around the camp.
Tyler watched them and then returned his gaze toward the jungle.
He wasn’t sure what he heard first, the automatic burst or the thud of the grenade as it thud to the ground about twenty yards to Paul’s left.
He tried to scream a warning but the explosion cut him off. A wall of flame erupted, lighting up the day and men were running as they were cut down by machine gun fire.
Something, it had to be shrapnel, banged into Tyler’s inner thigh and knocked him to his feet. Off to his left he could see Paul down too. They were too far apart from each other. Tyler tried to ask him how bad it was but the searing white-hot pain in his leg practically rendered him unconscious.
“Tyler, can you hear me?” Eric shouted. “It’s time to come back now. I need you to breathe. Come back to me.”
Eric squeezed the blood pressure cuff.
“I’m hit,” Tyler screamed. “I’m fucking hit.”
“Just keep moving,” Eric yelled. “Remember the tape player. You don’t have to watch this part. Just fast-forward it. I need you to come back. Keep moving, yeah, keep moving. Come on Steven where are you?”
His body settled down and, slowly and gently began to curl into a small ball. The fetal position. Steven was returning.
But with his return also came the return of his vitals, blood pressure which was climbing dangerously high.
“Come on Steven,” Eric said. “I’m going to count to three and when I finish you will be with me in the here and now.”
One.
Two.
Three.
Steven opened his eyes suddenly, gasping for breath.
“Hello, hello,” Eric said. “Congratulations, you’ve entered the land of the living once again. Looked like it was kind of touch and go there for a minute. I had to bring you up quickly. Things got a little hairy there.”
Eric raised his arm again and hit the stop button on the video camera. Steven yawned and asked Eric what time it was.
“Time for you to get out of here,” Eric said.
“Hey, can I bring the tape with me?” Steven asked.
“I’ll make you a copy,” Eric said. “Original and all. I’ll do it tonight and you can stop by first thing in the morning and pick it up.”
“Sounds good,” Steven said, as he grabbed his manila envelope and replaced the photo and letter from Paul. “Thanks. Thanks for everything.”
“Hey,” Eric said. “You too. All in a day’s work right.’
Steven smiled and nodded one last time before he exited Eric’s office.
Downstairs, Sarah was waiting for him in the lobby. The moment she saw him she stood up and went to him.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I’ve been worried sick about you. You’ve been in there for nearly four hours.”
“We made a lot of progress today,” Steven said.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me everything.”
“I will,” he replied. “But yes, I found out who I was. My name was Tyler Jackson and I was killed by friendly fire.”
Sarah’s eyes grew wide and she placed her hand over her mouth in surprise.
“Oh my god honey, I,” she paused. “I don’t know what to say. That’s horrible. Did you.”
“What?’ he asked.
“Did you have to see it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I saw it.”
They only made it through one movie when Ashley suggested they play Scrabble. If it was diversion Steven was looking for, he certainly found it in Scrabble. They were up until nearly two in the morning pitting their wits against each other until someone realized how late it had gotten.
They bid Ashley and Matt good night and had retreated to the bedroom. Sarah and Steven were almost in bed when Steven stopped.
“What is it honey?” she asked him.
“I just want to go make sure everything is locked up and powered down,” Steven said.
In all actuality, though, he’d thought he’d heard a noise - the sound of a Scrabble tiles being shuffled around to be exact. But when he walked into the living room there was no one there. He noticed the lamp near the table, where they played, had been left on.
He walked over to turn it off, and was reaching for the switch when something caught his eye.
Spelled out in Scrabble letters was a single message - FUCK YOU TYLER.
